Am i being unreasonable....tv

[ojr1609]

Hi,

I was wondering if i was being unreasonable and thought some mum's with little one's in nursery may be able to help?

My DS is full time at nursery, he is 2.5m and ahs recently moved up a room about 5 months early due to his development.

He has come home a few times recently and said that he has watched DVD's/ Rupert (which we have never watched at home) and other things on the tele. Now forgive me if i seem blunt but surely i don't pay £40 a day for him to go to nursery and watch TV. Is it unreasonable for me to expect that the day is planned around his and the other children's needs and not be put in front of a TV because heis now in a bigger room?

When my husband collected him tonight, there were a number of children around the TV whilst one adult was cleaning after tea, one was sitting at a table doing paperwork and one was feeding back to my husband and presumably the other parents.

What do you think of this and do you think i am well within my rights as a mother to request that he does not watch TV?

Thanks so much and sorry for the rant

I would say it depends how much they watch. At my the Nursery my ds goes to they can watch tv at the end of the day which is fine with me as I appreciate the children are tired and that the staff need to tidy away and prepare for the next day etc. However I'm also aware that the throughout the day the children have access to a wide range of resources, play outside everyday and that my ds is happy there and making progress in his development.

I'm also a nursery teacher in a primary school so I would agree that watching a lot of tv is not good provision or good practice. We wouldn't have a tv on as it isn't appropriate but then school nurseries are different to day nurseries and also the children are only with us for 3hours a day. If you are really unhappy then you should raise this with the nursery as of course they have a duty to provide a stimulating provision for children in their care. However it may be that tv is offered for a very little time and that the rest of their provision is excellent.

When my DS was at nursery, occasionally a child was allowed to bring in a DVD they liked and talked about to share with the group. That happened about once a month. I was OK with that, despite the fact that I don't really want to see children in front of a TV screen at nursery. Normally, after tea children would go outside to play or do whatever they liked.

I do not agree to sitting them in front of a screen for the convenience of staff - I would have issues with that and bring it up with the manager.

As you say I am not paying £40 a day to sit them in front of the TV. When I let them watch TV in the evening for a bit I generally assume they haven't watched in the day. We don't watch TV during the day either, we talk, play and do stuff.

I think it may have a place in full time daycare (NOT sessional playgroup etc) but I think you are well within your rights to ask what their policy is on it, what DVDs or programmes they watch. If it's 10 minutes out of a full day I don't think it's the end of the world....

Some settings use it as a 'babysitting tool', often not for longer than 10 minutes, to give them time to tidy up after a meal time. I personally do not think this is very good practice, but with very stretched ratios it can be difficult to get things done, other nurseries have a group story or allow the children to select their own quiet activities known as quite time, which last about 15 minutes to allow a thorough clean up and tidy away. as it has been mentioned, raise it with the staff or the manager, it maybe a habit they have slipped into and haven't given it much thought.

I wouldn't use a nursery that had a TV. There is no need for it at all. With the necessary staff ratios there shouldn't be a problem fitting in tidying up and paperwork.

DS's nursery doesnt have a TV but they do sometimes watch things on the computer, the gruffalo when that was their theme and harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs as part of the dinosaur theme for example.

For general day to day routine they sit on the carpet to listen to a story while mealtime is cleared up.

Yanbu have a word and find out how much they watch

Thanks do much everyone, I spoke to nursery this week and explained that I was unhappy with it. Since then absolutely nothing - no tv and my DS has said that he hasn't watched the tv too. All in all I'm much happier! Zx